[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hello, friends. I'm Ray Latif, and you're listening to the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage, Taste Radio. In this episode, we sit down with Emily Heintz, the founder and CEO of Sashay, a retailer, brand, and curator of premium adult non-alcoholic beverages. Like the effervescent bubbles in her sparkling wine, Emily Heintz believes that true quality always rises to the top. Emily is the visionary behind Sashay, a dynamic platform that includes a luxury de-alcoholized wine brand, a dry bottle shop in South Carolina, and a thriving D2C business offering a wide range of alcohol analogs. Sashay also curated Target's non-alcoholic adult beverage set, bringing elevated options to the mass retailer's shelves. The strategic direction and impressive momentum of Sachet caught the attention of InvestBev, a private equity firm specializing in adult beverages. In August, InvestBev made an undisclosed investment in the company, with founder Brian Rosen praising Sachet for having, quote, gotten farther with less than anyone else we've seen. In this episode, Emily joins us for a deep dive into her vision for Sashay and the journey of building the brand. Framed around a series of true or false questions, Emily discusses the key factors driving the growth of the non-alcoholic beverage category, how Gen Z and millennial lifestyles are shaping awareness and trial, and why she believes that the founder's voice is the most essential tool in connecting with customers. Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I'm honored to be sitting down with Emily Heintz, who is the founder and CEO of Sashay. Emily, great to see you.
[00:02:03] Emily Heintz: Great to see you. Thanks for having me on.
[00:02:05] Ray Latif: Yeah. Thanks for your brand new podcast set up, set up just for me and the team at Taste Radio. I appreciate that. Thank you. It looks great. Looks really, really good.
[00:02:14] Emily Heintz: Thank you. We love a podcast.
[00:02:15] Ray Latif: Yes. And I love the fact that you're joining us today in the midst of dry January. And I have in front of me, or to the left of me, three of your wines, your Pinot Noir, your Rosé, and your limited edition sparkling Sauvignon Blanc, which I am very excited to open right now. Do you mind? Can we do a quick tasting before we get started here? Okay.
[00:02:37] Emily Heintz: Let's start with the sparkling. Okay. As you know, point it away from your face.
[00:02:41] Ray Latif: But you know what, someone told me, I was talking to a bartender and he said, you're supposed to keep the cage on as well. You're not supposed to remove the cage. So you take the whole thing all off at once. Like even the foil, there were foil on this, so.
[00:02:58] Emily Heintz: One would think I should know that, but learning it alongside you. And I'm going to open one that is the same juice, but a different format that we're going to talk about at the same time. So both of me tasting the same product.
[00:03:10] Ray Latif: Okay, so your closure is a little different than mine.
[00:03:12] Emily Heintz: My closure is different.
[00:03:14] Ray Latif: But someone's going to hear the pop. Everyone's going to hear the pop here. Okay, this is sort of away from my face. Emily, this could be the end, so it was nice knowing you. Here we go. Oh, well done.
[00:03:25] Emily Heintz: Make it look so easy.
[00:03:27] Ray Latif: Yes, okay. I'm going to pour myself some here. Let's see, without breaking this setup here. Oh, drinking in the middle of the day, I love it.
[00:03:40] Emily Heintz: Yeah, that's one of the occasions we would love to steal. The midday work occasion.
[00:03:47] Ray Latif: First, Emily, thank you so much for being on Taste Radio. Cheers to you.
[00:03:50] Emily Heintz: Cheers to you.
[00:03:51] Ray Latif: It is really delightful. And I don't know, you know, I said, really, that is really delightful as if there were some hesitance or questionable thoughts in my head before even tasting this. And I'm sure you get that a lot, which is, could it actually be good if it's non-alcoholic? And it is really a delicious wine.
[00:04:13] Emily Heintz: Yes, thank you. It should be crisp and clean. It has a nice nose. It does taste shockingly familiar to what you can either say traditional or what some people say the real sparkling wine. It's a Sauvignon Blanc grape. It is from the Bordeaux region of France and was made specially for Sashay. De-alcoholized. So this was a wine. The alcohol was removed, which also removes sugar and calories. So bonus there. It is the health and wellness investment in yourself when you are trying an alcohol-free sparkling wine.
[00:04:51] Ray Latif: This was a wine, as you mentioned. I think it still is a wine, just as it's de-alcoholized, as you said. And I think it's very expressive of a Sauvignon Blanc and a sparkling wine and Yeah, I don't really taste anything missing. It doesn't feel like, and I think that's something that's great about wine is you're not necessarily supposed to feel any kind of burn like you do with spirits. And perhaps that's why this works so well. I mean, I almost said perfectly, and I think perfectly is an apt term.
[00:05:22] Emily Heintz: Yes, and we've had feedback that our guests and consumers have shocked and delighted, surprised their friends and family with a bottle of sachet wine. And it is a bestseller in our multi-brand retail location. And it's limited edition because we know that we continue to innovate in the non-alcoholic wine category. This happens to be organic and vegan, if those things matter to you, which we find exciting. And we were so impressed by the expression of a sparkling Sauvignon Blanc in the 750 that we introduced a 200 milliliter so that the bar to purchase was lower. People felt more comfortable trying a smaller format size.
[00:06:06] Ray Latif: What is the price point on the 750?
[00:06:09] Emily Heintz: The 750 is $29 at sachet.com and the 200 milliliter was exclusive to Target at $8.99 over the holiday season. And now it's available exclusively at sachet.com for $10. Okay.
[00:06:26] Ray Latif: I mentioned to you before we hopped on the mics, and I've mentioned this to a lot of people, I've talked about this in the podcast before. I've always been a little let down, sometimes a lot let down by non-alcoholic wines because I love wine and I just want the same flavor, texture, aroma that I have come to know and love. Basically what I'm saying is I want no compromises. And I know that's really, really tough. But I think what you've created with the sparkling is one of these wines that I want because I don't feel like there's any compromise here. And perhaps even better, I know I won't feel it in the midst of this interview.
[00:07:11] Emily Heintz: Yeah, you can continue on with your day.
[00:07:13] Ray Latif: Exactly. Exactly. When you were thinking about non-alcohol wines to begin with, and when you were venturing into your own journey as it relates to this category, What was it? I mean, what really moved the needle for you and got you sort of out of the idea phase and into the, I'm doing this phase?
[00:07:35] Emily Heintz: Well, like most of us during COVID, we were celebrating and socializing at home as best we could, right? You know, part of that was drinking traditional alcohol. And I went through my own personal journey, thinking about traditional alcohol and how it made me feel and started discovering alternatives. and that I could still have something in my glass and stay connected to the party without alcohol. So that was really the fundamental idea behind this. And because I have a retail and a brand background, I came up with a concept for Sashay where it's a a place where you can discover, explore alternatives, but you can still stay connected and socialize and celebrate. And then for Sashay, the embodiment of that is the wine bottle. So as a brand, we wanted to put our label on wine so you can take it home, you can have it at a bar, you can bring Sashay to your friends and family and continue to celebrate, but not have the ill effects of alcohol.
[00:08:41] Ray Latif: And when you realize that you wanted to moderate your consumption of alcohol, I think a lot of other people were feeling the same way. Not a lot of other people opened or created a non-alcoholic wine brand. Going from A to B, especially when it comes to a relatively new category or at least one that people hadn't really considered before 2020 is a big step. It's a big step in your life. And I do want to talk about your journey and I do want to talk about how you think about the development of sachet and the non-ALC beverage category as a whole. And as we have talked about, I'd love to kind of frame it as a true or false session here. A true or false session for sachet, as it were. And, you know, Emily, we can start here by me asking you, you know, true or false, your background or lack of experience in this business was helpful to you in getting the brand off the ground and getting to where you are today, true or false?
[00:09:53] Emily Heintz: True. So I think the non-alcoholic category has a lot of nuance. And early injuries have been struggling against the existing guardrails for alcohol. And a lot of early brands have really embraced sobriety. And for me, not coming from the alcohol industry and not having preconceived notions of how to scale the quote unquote alcohol brand, I brought fresh eyes to it. And I also understood that this nascent category really needed a laboratory to understand how consumers would react. And then how do we bring awareness and education to the category? I think that helped me and led me to develop a non-alcoholic wine without some traditional beverage background making me stay in one lane.
[00:10:51] Ray Latif: True or false, when you started out, were you perceived as a pariah by alcohol conglomerates? Were they not happy about you doing what you're doing now?
[00:11:04] Emily Heintz: False. I think that traditional alcohol didn't believe in non-alcohol as a movement. So it didn't really pay enough attention to it until more recently. Big alcohol also looked at spirits and saw that as the entry point for non-alcoholic. But what we are seeing is that it's actually wine that has the biggest growth potential.
[00:11:34] Ray Latif: If you can follow up on that, why wine versus beer or spirits?
[00:11:38] Emily Heintz: Well, 94% of non-alcoholic beer today is the investment in the category itself. Wine, non-alcoholic wine is only 5%. I think it's because while early investment into beer and the arrested fermentation process for beer, it's very close to what you might get in a traditional beer. Wine has a way to go with the technology, the de-alcoholization process, the price point. And so I think that's what you're seeing reflected in the numbers.
[00:12:08] Ray Latif: Well, you also operate a business in South Carolina where you sell a variety of non-alcoholic beverages and alcohol analogs, and it seems to be doing well. And in some cases, it feels like Sashay, the brick and mortar business, is the prototype for a lot of these new non-alcoholic bottle shops that we're seeing pop up all over the country. But just from your experience, this is not a true or false question, but just from your experience, are people gravitating more toward wine? Are people going in there to find wine more than they are other types of beverages?
[00:12:47] Emily Heintz: Yes and no, it's really evolved. And in the early days, so I founded Sashay in 2021, while it's always been a non-alcoholic element, we're truly a modern bottle shop. So Sashay means dry-ish, which means our license in South Carolina allows us to carry traditional wine and beer. So while I was happy to be categorized as a non-alcoholic bottle shop, we are really an alternative bottle shop, a new way of thinking about the category. So most of our customers drink alcohol and most of our customers are coming in either replicating or looking for something that they currently drink that's traditional and wine happens to be one of those things. The other opportunity for this category is around functional. So alcohol does, you know, give you a feeling, whether it's the perception that it helps you sleep at night, that it gives you like a buzz, that you maybe have a hit of dopamine, feel better. So the functional category is another one where consumers are coming in looking for, well, I like the way that this makes me feel. What do you have to help me sleep? Or what do you have that's gonna energize me?
[00:13:58] Ray Latif: I think about that a lot because a lot of the folks I speak to in this space talk about the fact that they are agnostic about their customers consuming alcohol. They think, you know, it's totally fine for you to make your own choices and have optionality in your life. And that's what we're there for, to give you an option when you don't want to drink alcohol. But the reasons for why people don't drink alcohol vary. Sometimes it's just, it's a Tuesday, I'm not drinking this week. Sometimes, you know, someone has had a moment in their life when they're like, I'm just done with this. Some people, for religious reasons, don't want to drink. But true or false, the future of non-alcoholic beverages is directly tied to consumers' perception of alcohol and the negative effects of alcohol.
[00:14:43] Emily Heintz: that the industry will grow tied to alcohol and that the customer is more mindfully drinking. So yes, they drink alcohol. That's the key to growth. Typically what we see is someone who is fully sober is not turning to an alcohol-free wine, a distilled spirit that's 0%, or a cocktail in a can. And if they are, it's for special occasions. The most common use of alternative beverages, non-alcoholic beer, wine, spirits, is through sessioning, taking a day off, a month off, is what we're doing this month. But then it ends up being, how do I mindfully drink throughout the year? And making a choice if I am gonna consume traditional alcohol. I call it gifting my hangover, right? So if I'm gonna go out on the town and I know I'm not gonna feel great the next morning, it's worth it because I'm socializing, I'm having a good time. And I think more consumers fall into that category about choice. And Sashay, our ethos is drink less, live more. My vision was never, don't ever drink again because alcohol is a carcinogen. Look, we know it's bad for us. We do a lot of things that aren't that great for us, but it's okay if you do drink. When you feel like you don't wanna drink, come to Sashay to discover some options.
[00:16:11] Ray Latif: I will say that Sashay, to me, expresses sophistication. In some cases, I think it feels like a traditional wine in that people perceive wine to be an elevated beverage and have for years. And sometimes I think that is to the detriment of the wine category. We're seeing people drink less wine and people always saying, oh, I don't know what to drink. I'm a little confused because there's just so many parts to the industry and so many parts to wine. varietal, there's vintage, there's region, there's style, there's all these different things. And oftentimes wine producers will say, we'll just drink what you like. I think that's fair. But drinking what you like and drinking what you like from the standpoint of packaging and marketing and communication is another thing. And I see modern wine brands pop up that are trying to be fun and young and lively and I wonder how you think about that in the context of the development of your brand. So true or false, does sachet need to evolve with younger consumers' perception of wine as much as it needs to match the sophistication of the wine category or the perception of wine as it is today?
[00:17:34] Emily Heintz: True. I think that there is room for sachet to yes, have a premium price point, sophisticated, elevated bottle, right? That appeals to generations who are used to consuming wine. And I think there's space for the younger consumers who may not have ever tried traditional wine, where they might be celebrating and they don't drink wine. So again, like playing with formats, you know, boxed wine, different varietals, adding functional ingredients. But for Sashay, like we think that, and we can see it, that a bottle, regardless of what's in it, in your table or in your home, represents connection. So I think that is applied to any generation, regardless of their flavor profiles or what they've had to drink in the past. I hope that answers your question around where the brand is going and who is resonating with the brand.
[00:18:35] Ray Latif: Yeah, it does. I guess I'm going back to a brand I saw on Instagram yesterday, and it was in a traditional 750 milliliter bottle. Actually, I think it was in a champagne sparkling wine bottle, but with a different kind of closure. It was with the crown closure. And it kind of looked like a cartoon, but it seemed like a lot of people were interested in this brand. It was a lot of hot pink and it definitely felt like it was for a Gen Z consumer. I don't know why I'm associating hot pink with a Gen Z consumer, but anyway, I think you know what I'm talking about here. And again, this is the complete opposite of what Sashay currently represents. Though, when you're thinking about connecting with millennials versus Gen Z consumers, it feels like there's a pretty wide gap there. Am I wrong?
[00:19:21] Emily Heintz: No, you're correct. They both drink differently. And I use drink to cover whatever that is in their glass. And some of the ways that we can achieve and like bridging the gap is through collaborations with some of the leading brands. So Sashay is a lifestyle brand around alcohol flexibility, but we do have a multi-brand strategy. So we can align with some of the other brands that might appeal to a younger consumer and create a product just for them as a partnership. And that's part of the Sashay portfolio. We've already done some collaborations for our retail partner. We're discussing doing more. And I think Sashay with a dry-ish ethos gives us that flexibility. And because I have a laboratory, I have a physical location with multiple brands, we kind of know what's resonating with each generation and we can build and grow our portfolio and where we focus our innovation based on that data and on now the data we have across the entire country.
[00:20:23] Ray Latif: Emily Heintz you refer to your retail partner, I assume you're referring to Target. Is that right?
[00:20:30] Emily Heintz: Yes. We curated an assortment to introduce non-alcoholic beverages into the adult beverage aisle for the first time.
[00:20:37] Ray Latif: So true or false? And I assume that the answer is true here, but Target is the best representation of, or at least has the best cross-section of consumers in America, such that it is the perfect place for this category, this nascent category of non-alcoholic beverages to grow.
[00:21:01] Emily Heintz: Yes, Target is a trendsetter. They are a leader. They do an amazing job operationally. And Sache for Target was a perfect partnership to introduce and to validate this movement that guests are asking for it and that guests use Target as a discovery retailer.
[00:21:22] Ray Latif: Okay, so that was kind of a leading question or maybe a leading to a false question in that I would think that the future of this category hinges on its ability to be sold seamlessly with alcoholic beverages. And where do you buy alcoholic beverages? Well, you certainly can buy them in Target, but I think most people, at least in the Northeast, buy them at liquor stores, buy them at a Total Wine, a BevMo, what have you. So true or false, the future of this category is tied to its ability to align with and be sold seamlessly in beverage alcohol stores.
[00:22:00] Emily Heintz: False.
[00:22:01] Ray Latif: Okay. All right. Let's hear it.
[00:22:04] Emily Heintz: I believe that the best place to discover brands and the majority of where consumers are finding things to drink it's at bars and restaurants. And yes, we do need to have those brands available in liquor stores and upper grocery stores, in mass retail. But from a discovery perspective, going into a bar and a restaurant and sips on lips is actually gonna propel the industry forward a lot faster because you're out, you're there, you're trying it, you're seeing it on the menu. So while we are excited about the retail partners that have embraced non-alcoholic beverages. I think the next frontier is how do we get more bars and restaurants to embrace cocktails, alternatives, and not just create a mocktail with some sugar and bitters behind the bar.
[00:23:01] Ray Latif: Yeah, I don't like when a blueberry lemonade was the only option that you had for a non-alcoholic cocktail. First of all, it's not a cocktail, but I remember those days and they don't really exist anymore. I always talk about one of my favorite restaurants in Boston. It's a place called Estragon. It's a tapas restaurant. And I know the bartender pretty well. And he says at this point, their non-alc cocktails are outselling their regular cocktail, their traditional ones. And they have a non-alc version of every single one of their cocktails. And I mean, that kind of blew my mind because I don't think that ever would have been the case, say five years ago. So things are moving pretty quickly. But I think one of the reasons why they do so well with non-alcs is because their cocktails work really well with their food. So true or false, the growth of this space in bars and restaurants is directly tied to the beverage's ability to pair well with food.
[00:24:02] Emily Heintz: False in some ways, true in others. I know you're looking for black and white, but you're not always consuming food when you're consuming alcohol or non-alcoholic beverages. So in some ways it's important. I think in other ways, going into a bar restaurant and feeling confident that they have a menu and that the beverage tastes great with or without alcohol, is the number one priority. Pairing well with food is great, but there are scenarios where I go to dinner, I'm at the bar having a drink before dinner, I consume an alcohol-free sparkling sachet Sauvignon Blanc, and then with dinner, I have a Barolo. or a pomerol with my prime rib or steak, you know? And so we call that sessioning. So I think that there's a little bit of both there. Yes, it should pair well with food, but in every instance, it doesn't have to. Okay.
[00:25:03] Ray Latif: Well, what do you typically pair a lot of dishes with? You pair it with a Pinot Noir. And I have your Pinot Noir in my hand here. I'm going to open it up. It's a screw top. There you go. And this is... type of wine, red that is, which gave me the most pause when I was considering non-alcoholic wines, obviously, because red wine is a very familiar and specific flavor. But let's give this a whirl here.
[00:25:31] Emily Heintz: Yes. Red wine is the hardest to replicate because you are not going to have the burn. that you do from traditional wines. But this does have notes of dried currants. It's really well balanced, dark red fruits. Feedback has been super positive on it. We do have customers coming back for it. I think the hardest thing to get over, especially for red wine, is people want real true depth and the burn. And non-alcoholic red wine, we're just not there yet. There's a lot of alcohol-free red wine out there that you may not like. Don't dump it down the drain, make a sangria, make a spritz, like do something with it, right? But we find that our Pinot Noir consumers like it on its own.
[00:26:13] Ray Latif: So true or false, the lack of quality is the best way I can put it, is to the detriment of the category such that it is a problem right now for the category.
[00:26:29] Emily Heintz: True. When I founded Sashay, the number of brands out there were very small, right? And it's really exploded. But part of my job as a curator and as the owner of not only Sashay's wine as a brand, but a multi-brand specialty retail concept is to try everything. And so we go through that process before even considering bringing a brand onto our shelves. So I think as we grow, both I'm talking about Sashay and the industry in general, the consumer is going to be a little bit more weary, especially if they tried something that isn't of high quality. And what we hope is that the consumers will turn to a retailer like Target in their neighborhood because they trust the curation or to sashay because we've gone out there and tried versus the marketplace approach that which you see pretty often today, starts with an A, won't name the name. And most brands are gonna be available direct. But how do you know if they're good if you're ordering direct from the site? You really do need like a tastemaker to kind of say, hey, here's what you're looking for. And here's what I recommend. So that is why original concept for Sashay, a place where we can increase the awareness, the availability and the convenience for non-alcoholic products, but also education. It's why we have a tasting bar in our store. And now while we'll continue to do that, and there is a place in the future where Sashay would have a retail store in the front and a full bar in the back with both alcohol and non-alcoholic choices. So, you know, I think it's difficult when there has been this gold rush, but at the same time, I'm very grateful for early entries into the category, like Athletic Brewing, like Ghia, like Kenuforix. You know, they started this movement. Toast is another one that's a great example of early. So, you know, kudos to everyone for getting us to where we are. And then working together with brands that are high quality to bring them to the consumer is really why I see Sashay's role.
[00:28:40] Ray Latif: How concerned are you, though, that someone's going to try something that isn't great and then say, I'm never trying this stuff again?
[00:28:46] Emily Heintz: Well, we've already been there, right? Most consumers have tried some version of non-alcoholic beer or non-alcoholic wine in the past, because they were there. So I don't think anything's changed, but the proliferation of brands and the partnership with both retail and bars and restaurants to only put things of quality on the menu, it's going to help overcome.
[00:29:09] Ray Latif: I hope so. And I think it does help to have influencers and thought leaders participate in this space and be very open and communicative about what's good and what's not. That requires trust. How do you trust someone? You know, people trust celebrities all the time. People trust chefs. But true or false, the messaging that people want to hear is from people like you. They need to hear it from the founders. The founder's voice is the most important voice, true or false?
[00:29:43] Emily Heintz: True. I think consumers can see through when there's not an authenticity. So in this category, it's really exciting that smaller founded brands with limited resources have grown and scaled, even Sashay. I mean, we've raised a minor, minor, minor amount of capital compared to some of the other players in the space, and definitely compared to big alcohol, who can afford to heavily invest in non-alc. So I think consumers can see that. It's great to have a 0% alternative to a traditional brand people love. but that's not always going to be the most innovation. I think the most innovation is going to come from a founder who's super passionate about the space and creating a product of quality. And it's, as you know, like building a beverage brand from scratch is a labor of love.
[00:30:41] Ray Latif: I think about Gen Z and I think about the generation behind them, Gen Alpha, and how many of them, their first sip of adult beverages may be a non-alcoholic version of that adult beverage. So true or false, it's a good thing that non-alc can be the introductory opportunity for Gen Z. Or would it benefit the category, would it benefit Sashay and other brands like it if alcohol were the first sip, an alcoholic version were the first sip?
[00:31:14] Emily Heintz: True that non-alcoholic should be the first for the younger generations. We have a 21 year age restriction on alcohol in the US. And most of the younger generations are celebrating and socializing well before they hit 21. So giving them something in a glass that allows them to participate in the party and in socialization is great. And then you don't necessarily have early adoption of a carcinogen in their socialization. So I think it's a benefit. I think the younger generations also are gonna move more towards functional. So we're seeing the adaptogens, plant-based nootropics, legal THC added to beverages. And that seems to be where the younger generations are gravitating because they don't know what a gin and tonic tastes like. They don't understand the French 75. They're just looking for something that tastes great to put in a glass or in a beautiful bottle.
[00:32:19] Ray Latif: I asked Bill Shufelt this a couple of years ago when I sat down with him about the potential to market to consumers that are not of legal drinking age. And I know it's kind of a taboo subject to say, hey, you should have a beer, you know, even if you're only 17 years old. But I mean, what's wrong with that? I guess if it's non-alcoholic. So true or false, do you think it's fine for NAA beverage marketers to go after and promote their products to those who are under 21?
[00:32:49] Emily Heintz: It's hard for me to give you a true or false answer because ethically... we are mimicking adult drinking behavior with these beverages. But according to the FDA, these are okay to consume. They are a food product when they're less than 0.5% alcohol by volume. So, you know, I think it's too early to really, for us to determine what those guardrails are, but I know that collectively as brands and, you know, partnering with retailers, we are making those decisions together, whether to card, who to market, but at the end of the day, I still think it's a positive, net positive for the industry in general. Again, like it's hard for me to say true or false to that.
[00:33:34] Ray Latif: No, that's fair. And I'm not giving you a lot of gray area here, Emily, but I, and I think your answers are appropriate. It's a really, really early time for this category, for this industry. And there's a lot of unknowns. And, you know, to that point, what is the biggest unknown for you? I mean, how are you trying to manage what you don't see and what you may be worried about? I mean. If it were me, I would wonder, you know, how many people are going to be turned off by bad versions of non-alcoholic beverages. I mean, for years, I think that's why NA beer was ostracized and considered lower quality than anything else. It's probably why a lot of people didn't drink it because everyone said it was bad. And then Athletic Brewing comes around and they have something that people are like, oh, wow, this is actually very, very good. And then you have a whole bunch of other brands that come out too. Again, in some ways, I think the biggest issue and the biggest question for me out there is how much of the good stuff can, you know, get out there before the bad stuff reaches other people's, other consumers' lips.
[00:34:41] Emily Heintz: Just like anything in food and beverage, the good stuff is going to rise to the top. It's through word of mouth. It's through trial and error. We'll see a shakeout. You mentioned earlier this gold rush and investment and the proliferation of alcohol-free beverages. That's naturally going to shake out. And the ones that consumers are returning for the second and third time, not just buying to try because they're sober curious, like those are the brands that are going to win this race. And for Sashay, because we have a multifaceted business where we curate assortments, we have a non-alcoholic portfolio, we work on collaborations, we have a flagship laboratory where we can test and learn from real customers. We will survive this, you know, shakeout, but we're playing the long game. Like this is a lifestyle that we've launched through Sachet. It's not a singular branded product, which is a much different approach than a lot of the brands out there and a lot of where the investment has gone. I will say that we have bootstrapped this business to today. And imagine what we can do when we go through a formal raise and have some fuel in the tank. and the data and the customer feedback to support what we've already been doing for the past four years.
[00:36:06] Ray Latif: Well, last question here, Emily Heintz you think about the future of Sashay and the potential for the brand, do you think about strategic alignment? You know, the big companies, the big conglomerates have a lot of power. They have a lot of distribution muscle. They have a lot of money for marketing. So I would think it's important, but true or false, does the future of this brand of your brand require strategic investment or alignment to really thrive?
[00:36:40] Emily Heintz: True. Yes. You know, the existing distribution system. has been in place for decades. It works. We are excited about working within that. We love some of the innovation coming out of Big Alcohol and some of those products. You know, I built this brand based on collaborations with partners leading the industry. I just launched our own product in January. Our future is dependent on continuing to align from a marketing perspective. This past month, we did sampling with Athletic Brewing Company. Those store windows were a partnership with Blind Tiger and Ritual Spirits. So we'll continue to do that. And I think us working together as a non-alcoholic category is the path forward because we do have some walls to break down with distribution. And how do we get these products, the best ones, in the hands of the end consumer? And there's multiple ways to do that.
[00:37:41] Ray Latif: Outstanding. Emily, thank you so, so much for taking the time to sit down with me. You know, I'm just looking at my calendar now and I don't, I forgot that we had allotted a half an hour and we've been talking for an hour and I apologize. And if your team is yelling at me right now.
[00:37:55] Emily Heintz: They're going like this.
[00:37:57] Ray Latif: Are they really? I am so, so sorry. I didn't realize. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with me. And I would love to meet up in person whenever you're up here in the Boston area or whenever I'm down in the South.
[00:38:08] Emily Heintz: Yes, absolutely. We're happy to host you at the store, and I'm sure we'll meet in person as we continue on this journey of Sashay.
[00:38:17] Ray Latif: Thank you again.
[00:38:17] Emily Heintz: Thanks, Ray.
[00:38:21] Ray Latif: That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNET.com, Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is BevNetTasteRadio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. you
